All Gods: Starting with Two Families

Chapter 122 The Demon-Sealing PotZhou Zheng traveled through the Void Realm for a long time.

So long that he began to lose track of time.

The scenery around him remained unchanged—dark, cold, with occasional fragments of broken Planes drifting by.

There were no stars, no light, only endless nothingness.

If not for the increasingly intense throbbing of the Bloodline within the Eagle People and fish-men, he would have almost suspected that he had gone in the wrong direction.

That throbbing had persisted for a long time.

At first, it was faint, like a call from afar; later, it gradually became clearer, like someone whispering in his ear.

By now, it had turned into a kind of near-tearing longing—those Eagle People and fish-men gazed up into the depths of the Void Realm all day long, their eyes filled with something even they themselves could not describe.

Zhou Zheng did not know what it was.

But he knew he had to go and see.

Finally, a silhouette appeared ahead.

It was a pot.

An incomparably huge pot, quietly suspended in the Void Realm.

The body of the pot was mottled and covered in cracks, as if it could shatter at any moment, yet it had persisted for countless millennia.

The mouth of the pot faced upward, exhaling and inhaling grey mist, while the bottom of the pot was imprinted with dense, intricate runes—Zhou Zheng did not recognize a single one of those runes, but just by looking at them, he could feel the... hatred contained within them.

Zhou Zheng stopped in front of the pot.

There was a huge crack on the pot’s body, extending from the mouth to the belly, as if it had been fiercely struck by something from the inside.

The runes at the edge of the crack were broken, revealing a gap that was barely passable.

Zhou Zheng’s Divine Thought probed inside, discovering that it was an independent world.

There were mountains, water, and living beings.

But everything was shrouded in an eerie greyness, like a faded old painting.

A stone tablet stood at the entrance.

Zhou Zheng did not recognize the characters on it, but the moment his Divine Thought touched the tablet, a stream of information flooded into his mind:

”The five types of creatures all possess spirits, and the scaled and feathered ones were originally innocent. However, the Kunpeng stole the fire, implicating the entire race. Now, the scaled and feathered ones are imprisoned here, never to leave for eternity.”

Zhou Zheng frowned.

Kunpeng.

Stealing fire.

He did not know what this meant.

But he knew that the Eagle People and fish-men in the Divine Realm carried the Kunpeng Bloodline in their veins.

They were the ones implicated.

Zhou Zheng took a deep breath and sent a Divine Thought Clone into the gap.

The moment he entered, he suddenly thought of a question—

If this gap was so easy to pass through, why didn’t the people inside escape themselves?

He looked back.

The gap was still there.

The Void Realm outside was still there.

Everything looked normal.

Zhou Zheng suppressed the doubts in his heart and continued forward.

...The world inside the pot was even larger than it looked from the outside.

The sky was grey.

The ground was yellow.

The air was filled with an indescribable scent—not rot, not burning, but... emptiness.

An emptiness where nothing existed.

The first things Zhou Zheng noticed were the living creatures.

A bird flew over his head.

It was an eagle, or rather, it had once been an eagle.

Its feathers were dull, its eyes hollow, and its flight trajectory was as stiff as if it were being pulled by strings.

It saw Zhou Zheng but had no reaction, just mechanically flapping its wings and continuing forward.

Zhou Zheng walked a bit further.

He encountered more and more things.

There were beasts with feathers, reptiles covered in scales, and some strange creatures somewhere in between.

But they were all the same—alive, yet not like they were living.

They would hunt, reproduce, and avoid danger, but there was no spiritual wisdom in their eyes.

Zhou Zheng continued to go deeper.

The outer circle was very large; he walked for a long time before entering the middle circle.

The changes happened slowly—the eyes of those creatures began to have a flicker of fluctuation, and their movements were no longer so stiff.

Finally, he met the first one he could communicate with.

It was an old fish.

It was lying in a nearly dried-up creek, most of its scales had fallen off, revealing the greyish-white flesh underneath.

The moment it saw Zhou Zheng, it was stunned.

Then, the old fish suddenly jumped up from the water, splashing a cloud of muddy water.

”You... you...” It muttered, its mouth opening and closing, making a hoarse sound, ”Did you come from the outside?”

Zhou Zheng nodded.

The old fish stared at him for a long time, then suddenly burst into loud laughter.

There was no joy in that laughter.

Only madness, despair, and a tiny bit of unbelievable hope.

”It’s here... it’s really here...” It muttered, then suddenly started crying, ”I thought... I thought no one would ever come...”

Zhou Zheng did not speak.

He waited.

After a long time, the old fish finally calmed down.

It lay back down in the water and looked up at Zhou Zheng.

”Do you know what place this is?”

Zhou Zheng nodded: ”A prison. For the scaled and feathered races.”

”No.” The old fish shook its head, ”It’s an execution ground. Crueler than a prison. A prison imprisons the body, but this place imprisons... the spirituality.”

It raised its fin and pointed into the distance.

”The further out you go, the less spirituality there is. Those in the outermost circle have completely regressed into beasts. They are alive, but they no longer remember who they are.”

”In another few tens of thousands of years, those in the middle circle will also become like that. Then the inner circle. Finally, in the entire pot, there will not be a single thing left that can think.”

Zhou Zheng was silent for a moment: ”Then why don’t you escape?”

The old fish looked at him, its eyes filled with a strange kind of pity.

”You haven’t tried turning back, have you?”

Zhou Zheng’s heart tightened.

He turned around abruptly and looked in the direction he had come from—the gap was still there.

The crack was still there.

But the runes at the edge of the crack were slowly flowing.

Not outward, but inward.

Zhou Zheng’s Divine Thought rushed out and collided with the gap.

Then he felt it—he could enter.

But he could not leave.

The rules had been changed.

Or rather, it was designed this way from the very beginning.

That gap was bait.

It made the people inside think there was hope, only to watch as that hope turned into despair.

Zhou Zheng took a deep breath, suppressing the turmoil in his heart.

”Kunpeng.” He spoke, ”What did it do?”

The old fish was silent for a long time.

”It stole something it shouldn’t have.” The old fish said.

Zhou Zheng frowned: ”What do you mean?”

”Go deeper.” The old fish did not answer, ”When you see the Moon Flow Spring, and see those guys occupying the spring, you will understand.”

Zhou Zheng was silent for a moment, nodded, and continued forward.

Behind him, the old fish began to laugh again.

The laughter was old, hoarse, and carried an indescribable madness.